Naandi Foundation in collaboration with ITDA, Paderu, has been working to improve the livelihood of Adivasi coffee growers in the Araku Valley region for the past 15 years.
The efforts made by Naandi include: introduction of organic and bio-dynamic practices for coffee cultivation, encouraging alternate income-yielding shade crops, training of farmers, processing and marketing support apart from setting up of Small and Marginal Tribal Farmers Mutually Aided Cooperative Society (SAMTFMACS).
At a meeting organised as part of the ‘Gems of Araku-2016’ ceremony here on Wednesday, David Hogg of Naandi Foundation said: “We had requisitioned the services of experts from different fields like soil fertility, coffee cultivation, microbiologists and compost expert to educate farmers on the best farming techniques. The soil of Araku is slowly getting richer and better and this was proved with the collection and evaluation of soil samples during the last 10 years.”
Manoj Kumar of Naandi Foundation said that the objective of the Naandi was to make each and every coffee grower in the Agency a ‘lakhier’ through coffee cultivation. Coffee growers in the Agency region were getting Rs.70,000 a year on their one acre farms and younger plants (3 to 4 years old) were fetching income ranging between Rs.30,000 and Rs.40,000.
Coffee pricing
Referring to the high incidence of farmer suicides in India, he said that meteorological experts had predicted a drought this year. The adoption of best soil and farming practices would enable Araku region to withstand even drought and emerge unscathed.
On the economics of coffee pricing, he said that Naandi Foundation was giving Rs.200 a kg of clean coffee to the growers as against the wholesale price of Rs.170 a kg at the Kushal Nagar market.
Free transport
In addition, Naandi was providing free transport for sending the beans to the Central Processing Unit, free drying and processing facilities to the farmers.
Mr. Manoj was all praise for the (SAMTFMACS) Board, represented by around 150 Adivasi leaders, for their good work in motivating nearly 11,000 coffee growers in the region.
Naandi Foundation has been working to improve the livelihood of Adivasi coffee growers
